Hey! Thanks for the welcomes!
I have no problem revealing some of the plot; I was just planning to ask more specific questions as I run into things. However, I’ll post a short version of the plot and some character information, perhaps, so as to refer people to it easier when asking those specific questions. If that made any sense. =)
The novel is titled The Doll House.
I’ll do my best to keep the summary short – the basics are as follows:
Plot Summary
-Back story-
Manuela Levesque grew up in the southern states, only child of a poor family living in a rather slummy neighbourhood. She spent her whole childhood unable to really have one – she was abused in many ways (physically, sexually, verbally) by both her father and her father’s friends. Her mother was a weak woman and rarely attempted to come to her daughter’s aid.
Manuela grows up and, to her surprise, ends up winning one of the largest lottery prizes on record. She builds a giant house out rather in the middle of nowhere, outside a small town. A childhood companion moves in with her, working as the housekeeper/cook. She decides that she was going to do some good in the world; Manuela decides that she wants to provide the childhood that she never got to young girls in need.
She adopts first one girl, than another. She dresses them up, feeds them, buys them toys and has a great time. They love the attention. However, something begins to shift. Manuela finds such enjoyment in dressing up the girls, in playing with them, that they begin to lose their humanity to her. Having gone through a childhood without toys or dolls or the freedom to just play and be a kid, she begins to revert back to the childhood she never had.
-end back story-
The two girls become dolls to her. Little porcelain dolls. Two isn’t enough and the next little girl she brings into the house is one who’s father was deep in debt and sold the child to Manuela for the sum of his owed money. Soon three isn’t enough and Manuela finds a child wandering on the street – she brings this girl home too. Eventually she doesn’t care whether or not they were lost or unwanted. She kidnaps several from right under a parent’s nose and goes as far as to take a newborn from a first-floor nursery.
The girls are perfect little dolls; they fear to be anything but. Manuela’s rage is easily provoked and punishments are the sort you might expect from a child who’s become displeased with, or bored of, a toy. Being left in a closet or made to stay under the bed for hours on end, sometimes being locked in a toy box. The little girls have lost any sort of humanity to Manuela.
And then one morning, Manuela is found dead in her bed. Rosalind (the servant) is gone and the girls know what happened – but won’t speak of it. They’re left to fend for themselves in the oversized house; a difficult task when they’ve been taught to let someone else do everything for them. Only Eleanor and Rachel have any concept of life beyond the house and only they understand what a dire situation they’re in.
A couple days after Manuela is discovered to be dead by the girls – her body has not been moved, it lies still in the bed, a storm sends a young teenager’s car off the road and he seeks shelter in the house. When no one answers the door, he tries it and finds that it’s unlocked so he goes in. He encounters the girls who don’t know what to make of him. He calls his mother and as soon as the storm has passed she comes to stay with them while they make some calls.
Someone (a social worker, of sorts) is assigned to stay with the girls. On top of trying to figure out who killed Manuela, they must also figure out where all the girls belong. They want to integrate them back into society and attempt to send them to schools. They become a phenomenon and once the story of the little human dolls hits the press, people are constantly trying to get inside the house and see them. They become a tourist attraction.
I haven’t decided on a definite conclusion (sorry that summary was long), but I’ve decided who did the killing and why. I’ve also decided there is going to be some sort of romance between Eleanor and the 17 year old who finds them – not a functional one, of course, but some semblance of something they think is a romance.
This poses several questions. Manuela regresses to… almost a childlike state. I’m going to need to figure out some more specifics on this to really grasp her character. (I HATE hating my characters, I’d much rather hate their actions but be able to feel sorry for them) As for the children, they’re going to be particularly interesting.
The way I see it, because of the way they’re growing up, they’re going to be… mature. They’re going to seem so much older than they are. However, partnered with that they would be pretty immature, naïve, and… innocent. Being treated like dolls, like toys, would be sort of thing that might keep them feeling rather childish, wouldn’t it?
Anyways, that wasn’t as short as I’d liked. Hehe. I’m really going to have to work on shortening that. ANYWAYS, any feedback you’ve got on that, how you picture the children might behave (I suppose how old they were when they were taken/adopted/etc) would come into play too. I have that information noted somewhere… But yah, how you think the children might act, how Manuela might act, how the woman who comes to stay with them might respond to them… How the teen boy finding them might react!
I have a pretty good idea how some of the reactions might go, how things might pan out. I’m just hoping to make this a pretty true-to-life sort of thing.
Anyways, characters are…
Main Characters
Manuela Levesque (somewhere in her 30s)
Rosalind Hernandez (somewhere in her 30s)
Eleanor Hamilton (14)
Rachel Thomason (13)
Amber Martin (10)
Lucy Waller (8 )
Mollie Parker (7)
Chloe Russell (6)
Bethany Adams (5)
Alyssa Hannigan (4)
Laura Bergen (4)
Mary Harrison (3)
Tommy Carson (17)
Megan Porter (undecided)
*Note: Most of the children aren’t REALLY main characters; Eleanor, Rachel, Chloe and Mary are really the key ones.
Sorry for going on SO much! Again, I’ll kind of just be drawing questions from my plot as I go and posing them. But any feedback on the plot, things I’ll need to watch out for, interesting things I ought to include, would be greatly appreciated!
Cara
Topic: Hullo from a curious writer! (Read 1188 times)
September 20, 2010, 07:30:25 AM